shook his head.

"Unsupported theories of that sort do not go well with juries, and, of
course, the whole story is so flimsy and so improbable that it will go
for no more than a piece of clever reasoning."

"Did anybody see you at the railway station?"

Frank shook his head.

"I suppose hundreds of people saw me, but would hardly remember me."

"Was there any one on the train who knew you?"

"No," said Frank, after a moment's thought. "There were six people in my
carriage until we got to Lewes, but I think I told you that, and you
have not succeeded in tracing any of them."

"It is most difficult to get into touch with those people," said the
lawyer. "Think of the scores of people one travels with, without ever
remembering what they looked like or how they were dressed. If you had
been a woman, traveling with women, every one of your five fellow
passengers would have remembered you and would have recalled your hat."

Frank laughed.

"There are certain disadvantages in being a man," he said. "How do you
think the case is going?"

"They have offered no evidence yet. I think you will agree, Mr. Mann,"
he said respectfully, for Saul Arthur Mann was a power in legal circles.

"None at all," the little fellow agreed.

Frank recalled the first day he had seen him, with his hat perched on
the back of his head and his shabby, genteel exterior.

"Oh, by Jove!" he said. "I suppose they will be trying to fasten the
death of that man upon me that we saw in Gray Square."

Saul Arthur Mann nodded.

"They have not put that in the indictment," he said, "nor the case of
the chauffeur. You see, your conviction will rest entirely upon this
present charge, and both the other matters are subsidiary."

Frank walked thoughtfully up and down the room, his hands behind his
back.

"I wonder who Rex Holland is," he said, half to himself.

"You still have your theory?" asked the lawyer, eying him keenly.

Frank nodded.

"And you still would rather not put it into words?"

"Much rather not," said Frank gravely.

He returned to the court and glanced round for the girl, but she was not
there. The rest of the afternoon's proceedings, taken up as they were
with the preliminaries of the case, bored him.

It was on the twelfth day of the trial that Jasper Cole stepped on to
the witness stand. He was dressed in black and was paler than usual,
but he took the oath in a firm voice and answered the questions which
were put to him